The Senate aviation subcommittee let the commercial sector air its desires last week about congressional action. For the most part, commercial representatives agree about what they want: maintain higher, earlier funding levels for the FAA's NextGen ATC modernization effort and keep pressure on the agency to provide results to industry. They also want Congress, the White House and even the American public to stop eyeing commercial aviation as an automated teller machine, or “piggybank,” and treat it more like a national asset.
Sonja K. McClelland has become interim vice president/secretary/treasurer/CFO of the Hurco Companies of Indianapolis. She has been corporate controller and principal accounting officer, and follows John G. Oblazney, who has resigned.
Northrop Grumman Corp. executives Dwight Yamada and Linh Dang (see photos) have received top awards at the annual Asian-American Engineer of the Year festivities, recognizing their leadership, technical achievements and public service in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Yamada, director of indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts for Northrop Grumman Information Systems, received an Executive of the Year award. Dang, an automated production line manager for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, received an Engineer of the Year award.
In its rush to prove the business case for airlines to buy and use next-generation air transportation system (NextGen) avionics, the FAA faces a quandary: What happens if trials designed to show positive results reveal the opposite?
ViviSat, a satellite-servicing startup developing life-extension vehicles for end-of-life commercial communications satellites in geostationary orbit, has signed up three customers and expects to begin building its specialized spacecraft by the end of 2014. Bryan McGuirk, chief operating officer of the ATK Space Systems/U.S. Space joint venture, says ViviSat plans to gather final financing and begin building its first Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) this year. The first flight should come about three years later, according to CEO Craig Weston.
One example of Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) push toward new international joint ventures is Custodio, a Singapore-based cybersecurity research and development company being established in collaboration with the nation's Economic Development Board and announced in February at the Singapore Airshow.
Airbus Defense and Space has completed the first phase of its airdrop trials of its A400M Atlas airlifter. The aircraft dropped a range of different loads by parachute during the trials at the Fonsorbes range near Toulouse in 11 flights during a two week period. Crews dropped 26 platforms and containers weighing from 255 kg (560 lb.) to four metric tons using the ramp aerial-delivery system (RAS-wedge), and 11 bundles weighing 15-320 kg using the paratrooper doors.
Eddie Johnson's Viewpoint “NASA's Plan Shorts Safety” (AW&ST Feb. 3/10, p. 82) is on target in being concerned about the safety of the commercial crew vehicles now under development. The Orion procurement (in 2006) emphasized safety and required that responding contractors demonstrate compliance with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).
At capacity-constrained airports around the world, high winds are a major cause of flight delays and cancellations, often as a result of the knock-on effects of reduced airport flow rates. Landing aircraft currently have to maintain set distances apart due to the wake vortices occurring from the wingtip, but research has shown that in strong headwinds, ground speeds on approach are reduced and the effect of the vortices is quickly dissipated, potentially allowing the distances separating the aircraft to be reduced.
Brian Clegg has been appointed vice president-global aerial operations for Erickson Air-Crane Inc., Portland, Ore. He succeeds H.E. “Mac” McClaren, who has become Washington-based vice president-government, defense and security programs. Clegg was vice president-flight operations for the CHC Helicopter Corp.
For offshore helicopter pilots, the approach to oil and gas platforms is one of the most work-intensive periods of the flight. During bad weather, pilots can struggle with high winds, while low visibility and clouds sometimes obscure heli-decks that often sit hundreds of feet above the sea level, and obstacles such as cranes and gas flares create challenges in the final moments before touchdown.
Matthijs de Haan (see photo) has become general manager of Terma the Netherlands in Leiden. He succeeds Richard Jones, who is retiring; de Haan was director of the Holland Space Cluster in Noordwijk.
New green propulsion technology developed by Swedish Space Corp. is expected to help Skybox Imaging sell black-and-white images at resolutions well below 1-meter ground-sample distance, positioning the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup to compete with established remote-sensing service providers in the U.S., Europe and Israel. Skybox Chief Executive Tom Ingersoll says the first two of a planned 24-satellite constellation of small, optical imaging spacecraft can already offer panchromatic products at 90-cm ground-sample distance.
Diana L. Sands has been named senior vice president of Chicago-based Boeing's Office of Internal Governance, effective April 1. She has been vice president-finance/corporate controller and is succeeding Wanda Denson-Low, who is retiring. Robert E. Verbeck, who has been vice president/chief financial officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security in St. Louis, has been appointed to succeed Sands. And he will be followed by Leanne Caret, who has been vice president/general manager for vertical lift in Philadelphia.
Temperatures soar to beyond 1,000C in the turbine sections of helicopter engines. This is hardly a hospitable environment for a condenser microphone. But Berlin-based German Aerospace Center (DLR) researchers, because they needed to take sound measurements in just such inhospitable places for experiments useful in the decades-long pursuit of quieter helicopters, have designed a special housing and coiled sound canal probe for the job.
Rafi Maor returned to Israel Aerospace Industries as chairman in November 2013. He had worked on the Lavi fighter program and led IAI's unmanned aircraft systems division before leaving the company for the information and telecom industries. Maor gave his first media interview to Senior International Defense Editor Bill Sweetman at last month's Singapore Airshow. AW&ST: What is your view of how big the civil unmanned air system market will be, and how soon it will start to take off?
Two retired NASA astronauts died recently—Dale A. Gardner, who helped capture two satellites in orbit and return them to Earth in 1984, and William R. Pogue, who logged 84 days on the first U.S. space station, Skylab, in 1973-74. Gardner, who died Feb. 19 in Colorado Springs, was 65. Pogue, who was 84 and died March 4, had been living in Cocoa Beach, Fla. The causes of the deaths were not disclosed.
The U.S. is close to completing the nationwide deployment of a satellite-based navigation network, which will be by far the largest such system in the world and a key foundation for the NextGen initiative.
Nav Canada is close to completing the nationwide rollout of a controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) system that is among the most advanced uses of this technology in any domestic airspace. After deploying CPDLC to six out of seven of its domestic flight information regions (FIR) under a phased introduction, Nav Canada is progressively broadening the message sets to cover a greater range of operational needs. At the same time, the company is seeing a steady increase in airline usage and CPDLC equipage rates as carriers recognize its benefits.
